A/N: So, this chapter is indeed late, however there was a family tragedy that made prioritising writing nearly impossible. The next few will be much slower, though this story is nowhere near dead. I enjoy writing this too much for me to leave it. Let me know what you think and I hope you enjoy. Also, more importantly...

**TW**: This chapter contains mentions of and depictions of child abuse. This warning might spoil something in this chapter, however I feel like it's much more important to avoid anyone who might be triggered by such content. I will bracket the appropriate sections with the warning.

Word Count: 3887

19. The Fire Lord (He Can Burn)

As soon as she stepped through the doorway, Azula felt singed by the fire. Surrounding her father rose columns of heat that sucked all the water from her mouth. Using every ounce of her willpower not to flinch under his gaze, she strode to the spot where she knelt in front of him. His eyes seemed to bore holes into the back of her head as she lay arms out.

"I send you off, to remind yourself of what it means to be a princess."

He spoke with such quiet vitriol that Azula felt herself shaking even more. He'd negated their ordinary protocol of even asking her what had happened or if she knew why she was in the throne room. She was terrified.

"Then I hear you leave before you've learnt your lesson."

Azula thought about that. She hadn't done that. The princess had left to find Percy after their trip to Ember Island had finished. But she couldn't bring that up. Not only would it do her no good and cause her more punishment. Not only did she believe that she hadn't learnt her lesson so she couldn't argue with it. But the main problem was she found herself incapable of speaking. She didn't trust her voice. One of the things that she'd trusted her whole life to say exactly what she wanted, to get exactly what she wanted. And she couldn't trust it.

"And once again, you return home empty handed."

She felt more than heard her father rise to move towards her from the throne. His steps echoed around the columns as the fire kept raging. She couldn't see anything, as her head was bowed deeply into her kneel. Her knees up to her chest and she didn't dare to look up.

"Rise, Azula."

She almost winced at his tone, pushing herself to sit back on her heels and then stand up in front of him. She didn't meet his eyes, placing her hands behind her back and holding them together to stop their shaking.

"Do you remember what I said?"

**TW**: CA

Her father lit his hand on fire, holding his palm out between them. Of course she remembered it.

It would be a mistake to think that you can fail me again, without consequences.

I deserve this. I deserve this.

The soft voice that had been so predominant in her mind in the past few days was nowhere to be found.

She nodded, slightly meekly. He placed his hand on her left shoulder, the flames extinguished against the metal. Azula still flinched as it hit her pauldron. She knew her father saw, and her stomach dropped.

"I'm willing to give you one last chance, to prove you can serve the Fire Lord well." Her father spoke down to her so she still held her breath. "But I can't have my daughter being weak."

His hand moved off her shoulder, but she couldn't be at ease. It came up and brushed through her braided hair. The princess winced slightly, knowing how un-princess-like it looked.

"And you show yourself to me, looking like a commoner."

He pulled on the hair slightly, making the braid come loose, before his hand returned to her pauldron. Azula felt a heat on her left side but still didn't look up.

"If you ever want to be Fire Lord someday, you can't control people who see you as weak."

The warmth increased and she felt something start to drip on her shoulder. That's when she felt the pain.

The sizzling of hot metal droplets landing on her shoulder sent excruciating swathes of agony through her body. She bit her bottom lip to hold back a scream. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the armour on her shoulder was red hot underneath her father's hand. She squinted her eyes as she felt blood forming in her mouth.

More liquid metal seared its way down onto her skin through her clothes. It was excruciating.

"I expected better of you daughter."

**TW**

His hand relinquished its place on her shoulder, but the metal kept dripping away. It took all of her inner will to not run out of the room immediately. She knew that would only make things even worse as her father turned back to his throne.

He wasn't walking slowly, but it felt like a leisurely stroll to her. Her armour felt fused to her skin. And yet he waited to dismiss her.

Once her father finally sat back in his seat, he waived an apathetic arm.

"Leave me, and return when you can act like the princess you should be."

Azula nodded, spun on her heel and sped out of the throne room. Her right arm wanted desperately to come up and cradle her left shoulder but she couldn't want to portray any weakness as the eyes of guards followed her down the hallways in the frighteningly silent night.

It's what got me in this situation in the first place.

She did her best to hide her limp left arm. Once she got to her room, she pulled a guard posted outside of her door towards her and then shoved him against the wall. The princess didn't care to take note on him sweating or the fear that consumed his eyes. All she cared about was what she needed him to do.

"Ty Lee, Mai. My room. Now." She said, through gritted teeth.

He scampered off down the hallways as she entered her room. With the door closed, she attempted to pull off her armour. A blinding pain came over her as she felt her skin being tugged off. She took off the lower half of her armour and unstrapped the chest and back plates from the shoulder pauldrons with a lot of discomfort.

She looked in the mirror in her bedroom to see, in the firelight of her room, the mangled remains of her armour and tormented, fractured golden eyes staring back at her. Without realising it, she stared at herself until she heard the sound of two people coming in.

"What is it Azula?" Mai yawned as she came in. "What couldn't wait until the morning?"

Azula turned to her and the girl's eyes widened drastically.

"Oh shit." She breathed out.

Mai came up to the princess and gingerly led her over to her bed.

"Can you take it off?" Mai asked, speaking way too calmly.

"No."

Azula winced as she accidentally rolled her shoulder without thinking. Ty Lee seemed to be hanging back towards the doorway.

"Was it Percy?" She asked, tentatively.

Azula had completely forgot pretty much all that had happened. All the Percy stuff had just gotten thrown out of her brain.

"No."

One-word answers were all she could give to withhold her tears.

"Ty Lee." Mai interrupted. "I need you to get me some water. Some cool water. And some bandages."

Her answer seemed to be enough to get the gymnast moving, because the girl shot out the door without a second thought. Azula turned her eyes back to Mai.

"How-" She winced. "How do you-"

"How do I know what to do?"

Azula bit her lip as she nodded.

"Don't worry about that. Just try and stay awake. We're going to have to get this off you, and it'll be painful."

As Mai's hands tucked under the metal, another drop fell onto her skin. The princess let out a moan of agony as, thankfully, the girl immediately stopped.

"Sorry. But I'm going to have to do that again."

They waited slightly, with Azula doing her best to focus on her breathing to get her through. A rustling at the entrance made them both aware of Ty Lee's presence. Quick as a flash, and using the distraction, Mai ripped the armour up off her skin and over her head.

The last thing Azula felt was the metal tearing away from her and waves of aching, stinging pain setting fire to her shoulder. She might have let out a harrowing scream but she didn't know. Everything was in darkness anyway.

Ty Lee entered the room to a wailing princess. It wasn't how she expected the night to go, and it definitely wasn't what she thought it would be about when she was ordered to Azula's room in the middle of the night. Although she wasn't quite sure what she thought.

"Ty Lee, the water." Mai requested hurriedly.

The gymnast scampered over with the pot of cool water and the bandages in her other hand. She noticed Mai pulling out a dagger and picking out the hardened metal from the princess' shoulder. Ty Lee could barely watch it and wordlessly handed the water to her.

She was very glad that Percy didn't have anything to do with it, not that she thought it had. But with two people as powerful and emotional as them, she was always worried. What she definitely hadn't predicted was her friend's preparedness for the occasion.

"When did you learn what to do for this?" She asked.

Mai huffed as she concentrated on Azula's shoulder, holding down her arms. Ty Lee winced as a little bit of cooled metal was flicked over onto the bed. She didn't particularly want to think about the flecks of red and pink that covered it. She helped her friend hold down the unconscious girl, as they didn't want any flailing limbs if she came to.

"You know why." Mai said, plainly. "If we were to ever not do something right…"

Yeah… with Azula. Or when they were kids and she used to throw her bending around incredibly callously and casually.

Ty Lee shook her head. She knew deep down there was a reason for that, but it was still difficult not to be frustrated at her firebending friend for that. But that fear of Azula seemed to be nothing compared to…this.

"I'm going to…" Mai trailed off.

The girl gripped her dagger dangerously tight.

Kill him.

They both knew exactly who she meant and what they both wanted to do. But it's not like they could. Not to mention the severe repercussions that could be invoked on them and their families if they were caught attempting to do so.

"I know." Ty Lee said.

They sat in silence as Mai proceeded to try to get the rest of the wound cleaned up. When pulling out the last particularly difficult part of the metal, Azula's eyes shot open and a choked scream came out of her throat.

The girl put down her dagger and pulled up the princess into a sitting position with Ty Lee's help. Mai began to slowly run the water over the shoulder. The initial wince was followed by a sigh from their friend along with her body relaxing a little bit more.

Ty Lee noticed Azula's extremely strong grip on her own hand and looked down to see that she'd kept holding on. Even after it seemed the worst of the pain was over with, the firebender kept the gymnast's hand clasped in her own.

The grey-eyed girl also noticed the new hairstyle that the princess had. It was very different, and completely softened her face. Even in the harsh, flickering candlelight, the loose braid fell deftly onto her uninjured shoulder. Though, and Ty Lee couldn't help but notice, the braid did need to be tightened a little.

As blunt as always, Mai was the first one to bring up the injury.

"So… are we going to talk about it?"

The grey-eyed girl felt the nails of the princess start to dig into her own palms.

Definitely shouldn't.

"How was your trip, Azula?" Ty Lee interrupted brightly.

Mai gave her a side eye over Azula's shoulder, along with a raised eyebrow, but she just shook her head back slightly. The firebender's fingers lessened their grip on her hand, but only a bit.

Seems like the trip wasn't blissful nor a complete success.

Ty Lee hated the part of herself that was somewhat happy at that, but it was definitely there. Azula began her description of getting to where Percy was and she tried for a supportive, happy smile. It seemed to satisfy the princess, as there wasn't a single moment of hesitation or mistrust while Mai was wrapping her shoulder with bandages. The distraction seemed to be aiding the pain for Azula.

The gymnast had thought she'd been convincing but based on the look she received from her dagger-wielding friend, she could only manage a fake, half-hearted smile. Every description of every moment Percy and Azula had together chipped away at her, and after talking about relaxing on the water, she was thankful that Azula seemed to be drifting off to sleep. Ty Lee didn't know how much more of it she could've taken.

They laid the princess down, moving some of her pillows to help support and take pressure away from her injury. Mai brushed past her as they stood up.

"I'm so sorry."

It was all she could whisper while in the vicinity of their friend. Ty Lee shrugged but plastered on her typical smile.

"Uh, guys." Azula said, uncharacteristically shyly. "Could you not…"

Leave. Ty Lee finished in her mind.

"Of course not, Azula." She responded brightly.

The gymnast went around the bed and clasped the princess' hand, thinking of all the places she'd rather be. The main one had just been described to her in a story she could never get to.

She found it hard to get to sleep with all the different thoughts and possible endings to Azula's tale running around her head. It didn't help that she could've sworn she could smell him.

Percy stood on the bow of the first ship, Hakoda next to him as the wind blew through their hair. The Earth Kingdom satchel was slung around his shoulder. His view was only partially obscured by the fog the swamp waterbenders were kicking up around them, but he knew exactly where he was going. He sensed the island in front of the small fleet.

Siosi had been doted upon by a rotation of the swamp men throughout their journey and was sitting happily, with a full stomach, against the side of the ship. The sun rising slowly to their backs as they approached.

"Thank you, Percy." Hakoda said, gratefully. "I think we might've been late with all the people we had to pick up."

"It's all good." He shrugged.

The tug in his gut was minimal as he propelled all five boats across the ocean.

"We're a few nautical miles away." He said over his shoulder.

"We're what?" Hakoda asked.

"Oh, um, we're close?"

"Right."

He got a very odd side look from the Southern Water Tribe Chief before the man went down to the Hue, Due and Tho. The demigod heard him ask the two that were bending the mist to stop. A few seconds later, they broke through into the clear air. He saw the Black Cliffs island, with its naturally protected cove directly in front of them.

Nice choice, Sokka.

Percy had been briefed quickly by Hakoda on their rough plans, not to mention he could almost feel the rumblings of the much bigger islands that surrounded them. He'd noticed they'd sailed past a couple volcanic islands to get to where they were. It seemed to be a very volcanic area in general. He'd shuddered at the realisation. His last trip to a volcano not exactly going the way he planned. He definitely hoped for something different than erupting one and sending himself to a magical island again.

He propelled the boats forward and into the secluded section of their island with the large cliffs encircling them. He noticed jetties being built by, his best guess, Toph and Aang. Even that little bit of knowledge was enough to lift his spirits, glad that the Avatar was feeling strong enough to earthbend. It'd been quite a while since he'd last seen the little kid, when he was unconscious after being pulled from death.

The ships pulled into their own jetty, docking calmly in the early hours of the morning. From the bow, he saw Sokka and Katara running to their father. Hakoda was one of the first to disembark, going down their wood ramp. Percy wandered down himself, right as the Water Tribe girl crashed into a hug with the man. He overheard Sokka asking him a question, to which he was one of the answers.

"Were you able to locate everyone I told you to find?"

"I did." Hakoda replied, moving to the side.

The demigod casually strolled up to the three of them, knowing everyone else on his boat was following. His ostrich horse wandered down the jetty with him but continued towards the solid ground to most likely just laze about.

"Percy!" Both the siblings exclaimed.

They rushed towards him, the waterbender jumping in for an embrace and Sokka waiting for a handshake.

"Is that Stompy I hear?!" His little earthbender yelled from the shore.

"It is! Get over here Toph." He called back.

The sprinting Blind Bandit attacked him with her own hug, hanging off his midriff, as the water tribe kids went back to talking to his dad about the people they had to fight. He gave her a tight squeeze back and Toph just seemed happy to dangle for a bit.

After hearing about pants being an illusion, he noticed a significant lack of a certain airbending Avatar. Percy scanned the coalescing group of people and didn't see the distinctive yellow and orange of the Air Nomads. What he did see, was an entirely different Aang in the red of the Fire Nation, with a full head of hair. The kid seemed to be approaching him, very shyly and nervously.

He listened to Toph ramble on about their adventures since he'd last seen the group. The young girl seemed set on catching him up on all of it, and Percy tried to keep up. His attention kept getting pulled away by the completely unsubtle airbender shuffling closer. Though Percy didn't want to call out to Aang, as not to frighten or discourage the boy from speaking to him.

What he did manage to catch from Toph was something about fighting a Fire Nation ship, having a dance party, saving a floating town with illusions, boredom with swords, Aang going to the bathroom in the Spirit World and pulling pranks for money then being caught. Percy was confused by a few of them, the first being a Spirit World, he was curious if it was anything like Olympus or the Underworld that he knew. That being said, neither of them had toilets that he knew of, so he was clueless.

Huh, I never had to go to the bathroom on Olympus or in the Underworld. Is there like… some magic for that? Eh, thoughts for another time.

The part that really caught his attention was right at the end. He'd noticed the earthbender waiting until the Water Tribe group moved further down the jetty before talking again. That immediately had the demigod listening a bit more intently.

"And we went to this creepy old lady's house right before coming here." She began again. "Turns out, she's from the Southern Water Tribe, like those guys."

She gestured down to all the people in blue.

"And get this. She's a waterbender." Toph started whispering. "And she could bloodbend."

Percy froze, a very cold feeling running through his veins. The throbbing of a heartbeat felt loud in his ears. He could see where the story was going, and he felt sick to his stomach.

"The old woman began training Katara before we knew that."

No, she couldn't. She didn't. She wouldn't.

Percy looked over at the back of the young waterbender chatting with her father and brother. She looked overwhelmingly normal, but he didn't know how much time had passed between that training and him arriving with everyone.

The demigod was glad to see the normalcy, but he knew firsthand how much powers like that stripped away your connection to your humanity. The fact that she was walking around calmly worried him. He remembered what he was like after turned the poison against Akhlys. Although that was… that place, so there was also that contributing factor. Just thinking about it all made him shudder.

"The lady, Hama I think was her name, controlled Aang and Sokka, so Katara had to use bloodbending to stop her."

Percy winced.

"How was she after?" He asked the girl.

Toph's mood, which had been excitable and mischievous before the story and then uncertain through it, darkened a little.

"She was crying, a lot."

The earthbender shuffled uncomfortably at the memory, but Percy found a little bit of solace in it. Distraught was the appropriate and empathetic reaction he had been hoping for. He knew what it was like to break on the inside, and to come out the other side of that feeling deeply about the experience was the only way to get through.

He noticed that Toph was hiding just how scared she really was of the story. He couldn't imagine how bloodbending would feel, let alone someone who relies on their body for their sight. Even if she hadn't been bloodbended, it had clearly been weighing on her mind.

"Hey." He pulled the girl in to his side and began walk down the earthen pier. "It sounds like she knows how dangerous it is and won't do it again. And I certainly can't do that."

Toph looked slightly better, although she nudged him with her elbow as they came to a stop even closer to Aang. He was standing on the edge of a group, actively not trying to be a part of the conversation.

"I know you're lying. You may as well get your Big Foot out of your mouth."

She smirked slightly, and Percy was happy to see it.

"Alright, you got me, Ms. Lie Detector. I've never tried it and I don't intend to ever do so. How about that?" He replied.

The earthbender had a self-satisfied smile on her face that lightened the mood a lot.

"Much better."

Percy saw a bunch of guys dressed not too dissimilarly from wrestlers back on Earth who seemed to be looking at Toph. They definitely seemed like her type of people either way.

"Hey, Toph. There seems to a few people that want to see you."

He gave her a light push towards the end of the jetty.

"No way." She said, clearly sensing who it was. "It can't be."

The girl turned back to him.

"I'll talk to you in a bit, Stompy."

She threw a punch at his arm and then ran off towards them. Percy chuckled to himself. Right as she left, Aang got even closer. The demigod was going to wait to acknowledge his presence, but he saw both Katara and Sokka looking over his way, so he figured there wasn't any better time than now.

"So, did you want to have this talk in a little bit more of a private place?" He asked the kid.

He wrapped his arm around Aang's shoulder and began walking away from where everyone was grouping up.

A/N: I hope you enjoyed...as much as this chapter can be enjoyed. For anyone wondering about my choices for character arcs, I enjoy the parallels that are already in ATLA so I'm making an effort to have every single character arc that I change from canon to be paralleled to another characters arc or a previous choice that the characters are having to overcome. With this one... a certain character has a similar (but slightly different) character moment with Zuko.
I appreciate all the support for the previous chapter and this story. It's great and I hope you all can stand the wait between chapters. That being said, time for some review replies:

Anvith Mithra: Yeah, I know what you mean. But I hope you continue to enjoy what I do with the characters, no matter how much you hate it. These kids were never meant to have it easy, and even though its a bummer sometimes, it's really fun to create and develop character.

Jctherebel/Death Fury/HellRaiderS/Conner W/Ryouhaku13: Thank you all! I'm glad you enjoyed the chapter. I hope you enjoyed this one and what I do with the rest of the story!

HaywireEagle: Hmmm... I'll neither confirm nor deny if that is a goal of mine, to somehow fabricate either or both of those scenarios into this story. I can't promise anything as if it detracts from the story, it definitely won't be in it... but *shrugs mischievously*

Callum Runchman: I have things planned for the invasion... and I like that you're looking forward to an Azula redemption. What I will say is that Azula's arc will parallel a lot of Zuko's, but that might not be in the form that you're expecting. I'm glad you're enjoying the story though!

CRUDEN: You're absolutely right. It would be remiss of me not to have them interact more. It's a whole lot of fun to write.

Guest (1): Schizophrenia is definitely one of the things you can diagnose her with, though its definitely not the only thing on that list.

WildMan98: Yeah, he's always been amazingly smooth and suave... you're absolutely right, freezing up is classic him. All good, read whenever! I hope you enjoy this one and thank you a lot, glad you loved it!

Guest (2): As said above, there are definitely reasons. I'll do my best, but I'm not going to let this story suffer in quality, just to keep a tighter schedule on uploads. The chapters will come when they come, it is juts how fast I write them. My writing speed before was just around about a chapter every couple weeks. Now, not so much. I do hope that you're appreciative of that and also continue to enjoy the story. I'll take your want for a new chapter as a compliment nevertheless.

Guest (3): I appreciate you saying that, the updates will come when they come :)

Guest (4): Definitely not dead. It's not going to die unless I say so, and you all will be informed of that... though I highly doubt that would happen.

Guest (5): I appreciate that. I agree, I'll take the impatience as a compliment, but I agree. I hope you're enjoying the story nevertheless.

Thank you to you all for reading! Next chapter will finish the setup for the invasion. Then... the invasion! Hope you all enjoy.

-PS